Family Togetherness: Dance Party Saturday Night

Photo: Party Tent, property of Lenny Steele

Dancing has been my passion since I was at least three years old. I danced and leaped all over the house begging my mom to let me take ballet lessons. I was captivated by shows like Shirley Temple and the live recorded ballets shown on the PBS channel. The highlight of my youth was scoring tickets to see my idol MikhailBaryshnikov perform live at the theater. In my college years it was an honor to be able to study under such greats as Natalie Nijinsky, a prima in the Moscow Ballet, and my friend Karen, a prodigy of Rudolf Nureyev. An injury prevented me from staying with ballet; however, the dance bug never left. I took to the dance halls of a local Disco studio. Living it up in platform shoes, bell bottoms and afro puffs. I even worked for a party company reliving the 20’s and 50’s era style of dance. Dancing was my life. If I was angry…I danced. If I was stressed…I danced. When I was happy…I danced! I am so happy that my children share my enthusiasm for dance. But if you don’t, then you can always turn to playing games like betend to help you whenever you’re stressed or unhappy.

After a long week we crank up the music and find our groove. The kids all have different tastes so it gets a little crazy after a while changing from girlie pop to raging metal; with a slew of garage band and Indie Rock in between.

— The preschool aged guys tend to be less concerned about how they look and more focused on having a blast. For this age group just turn on the music and boogie.

— As kids get older it is probably not so cool to cut the rug with mom and dad. For school-aged children Playstation, XBOX and Wii have games like Dance Revolution that are not as lame as watching mom do the Macarena.

— For the scholarly age group of youth you can choose to learn a different style of dancing as a family at a local studio. Think ballroom, jitter bug, swing, scottish, clogging, salsa, disco, ect.